For a long time now, Southwest Airlines' Android app has been awful. I mean just lamentably bad. No, seriously, here are some screenshots of the app before today's update... and oddly, Southwest hasn't even updated the screenshots in the Play Store.

See? It's like someone got the only app developer from TWA to work on it. The app has been given a complete overhaul with today's update, bringing both the interface and the capability up to snuff. But as frequent US airline travelers will know, even when you get to fly first class, it's still a pretty crappy experience.

Yes, the interface has been updated to conform at least somewhat to current trends, if not Holo design guidelines. But there are odd choices in layout and function, and fonts get stretched and strained with wild abandon. Check out that back button, apparently ripped right from the iOS app along with the rest of the UI. Even on my Nexus 7 2013, it's slow, cumbersome, and generally confusing (again, a pretty perfect comparison to air travel itself). At least the layout seems to scale well.

All the functions you could want are here: even without a Southwest account you can check airfares (which are only available from the Southwest site otherwise) and plane schedules. You can set the app to alert you to flight information changes... via text message. Once you log in you're given access to your travel itinerary, flight check-in, and booking for flights or rental cars. Rapid Rewards, SWA's frequent flier program, is also integrated into the app. All in all, it could be worse - kinda like taking an afternoon flight into Love Field to save a couple hundred bucks.